Guild Wars 2

Hi, my name is Caed [Aeterna]. Many of you may know me as the grumpy thief on Anvil Rock. I have played the game since beta, and the first class I chose was a thief.
As a brief introduction, I think the game is incredibly balanced for 3 months. There are a couple classes that are a little over the top (ie Mesmers, due to a couple bugs with shatter) and a few that are a little weaker (ie Engineers, because they serve extremely niche roles that don’t necessarily fit in the current ‘meta’).

While I think thieves are fairly balanced I do agree that there should be a few changed to tone them down. First problem is the stealth cap, this needs to be reduced. Second, skills such as heartseeker and death blossom need positional requirements. Lastly, I believe that all classes need a small health pool boost.

Stealth cap: Currently the stealth cap is at 14 seconds. This gives far too much of a safe zone for thieves and opens up a number of problems. Thieves that run the XI trait from Shadow Arts, Shadow Rejuvenation, regenerate absurd amounts of health due to such a long stealth cap. This makes thieves one of the strongest 1vX classes in the game coupled with evading skills such as death blossom and pistol whip. Another issue with the current stealth cap is that is makes positioning on a thief far too easy. Positioning should require intelligence, but having 14 seconds of stealth allows a thief to waltz right past the enemy to wherever they “need” to be. Reducing the cap will not only make the timing of stealth far more important, but also the timing of burst from stealth. 14 second stealth allows for thieves to wait for all protection boons to wear off of a target and strike then, without any punishment from mis-positioning and sitting there waiting to strike. With a stealth cap reduction it would require better timing from both stealth and a thief’s burst. I suggest that this be reduced to ~8 seconds, instead of 14.

Skill positioning: Skills such as heartseeker and death blossom are far too rewarding. You get way too much for the button you press. To start, heartseeker automatically aims a thief to its target, closes a gap, and increases its damage the more you press it (or the less health the target has). Death blossom also automatically aims, closes a gap, does aoe cleave, and evades for one button. Both of these skills need to have “Blazing Speed” treatment. The skills should move you towards the direction you are facing, and at a set distance (death blossom does this, heartseeker does not) instead of automatically closing the necessary gap, whether there is a gap or not. This would require for proper positioning and increase the skill required to use these properly.

Health Pool: I think that all classes need a health pool increase, not that burst damage needs to be nerfed. A higher health pool (on EVERY class) will give the proper amount of time necessary to react, prevent 100-0 glass versus glass burst, and still allow burst to do it’s job. Nerfing burst for a few classes, such as thieves, will effectively make them useless. A thief’s job is to do damage, there is very little that they can do besides this that is (that would be considered more useful than what another class can do). Burst is healthy for the game, it is necessary to end fights and timing burst intelligently leads to a team fight win or a node cap – as it should. If they increase the health cap they will prevent the 1 shot that is occasionally going on while keeping the fear factor of having a thief on the enemy team.

These 3 things will balance my class and increase the skill cap to playing thieves correctly. It will also punish players for poor positioning, poor timing, and wasting initiative. Constructive criticism is welcome, however I will not waste my time arguing with trolls and ignorance.

Love,

- Caed.

Edit: Meant the XI trait, not IX.

Yes.

Love,

-Hiba.

Stealth:
No need to further nerf the duration of stealth.
If you go for shadow arts, you are supposed to pick utility and defensive traits (decreasing damage output). I agree, XI is powerful, but it looks so powerful, because other grandmaster traits are so bad (see best example – hard to catch – total embarassment).

Skill positioning:
Death blossom is okay.
Heartseeker might need some increase of initiative cost, and add some effect, like weakness/vulnerability for 3 seconds. Damage isn’t problem here, but spammable gap closing is.
Btw. I wonder why there is self root on shadow shot.

Health Pool:
No need to change anything here. If you want more health, put vitality jewel into amulet. But if you want to increase HP for everybody by like 5k – just no.

I think that heartseeker is not a problem at all. It does laughable damage and is too easy to dodge.Invisibility is fine, as they have to hit you in order to go invis.
And don’t forget that thieves are paper and that some players like Zlatan Ibrahimovic would stomp on their faces in seconds.

nemoj da te razbijem!

What about Thief evade skills? Shouldn’t they be more high risk and high reward? I mean it doesn’t seem to reward you enough for being good at timing evade skills but at the same time its just too safe to spam it when you think you’re about to get hit.

Schwahrheit.4203:

What about Thief evade skills? Shouldn’t they be more high risk and high reward? I mean it doesn’t seem to reward you enough for being good at timing evade skills but at the same time its just too safe to spam it when you think you’re about to get hit.

I think positional requirements on death blossom will punish people who use it incorrectly enough, since it has high initiative cost and you will miss your bleeds.

Pistol whip on the other hand is countered extremely hard by retaliation, as well as mitigated by armor more than other skills (due to multiple successive hits). I don’t think pistol whip needs any changes, and death blossom needs a positional requirement (not mindless auto aim), as I said earlier.

Yeah pistol whip is highly punishable, was saying maybe short bow 3 and death blossom should be at the same level as pistol whip.

Caed, you have truly outdone yourself with this post. We don’t get along very often, but this post right here…. Makes me <3 you that much more.

My name is QT Vain and I approve of this post.

<3 Vain

Bitter thief is bitter.

Forcing a thief to short-bow 3 wastes his initiative and closes their window to burst, forcing them to exit the fight and re-position (this is a benefit for your team).

Narcarsis.5739:

Forcing a thief to short-bow 3 wastes his initiative and closes their window to burst, forcing them to exit the fight and re-position (this is a benefit for your team).

Casuals have a hard time understanding things like these though..

I’ve always found that stealth in this game is too forginiving. Hmh, I think that instead of lowering the stealth cap we should be punishing poor performance while in stealth, for example, if you use a skill and that skill fails, misses, is blocked or evaded, you get revealed. Or if you are damaged beyond a certain threshold (more than a 10% of your HP, maybe?), you should get revealed too. As I said, if you kitten up while in stealth, you should lose advantage, and be forced to either back away a little or think things twice.

On the subject of higher HP plateaus, it’s something that could work if it’s done little by little, and applied to all classes on a similar fashion. For example I’d go with something like this:

Lowest tier: 13,5k base HP.
Mid tier: 16,5k base HP.
High tier: 19k base HP.

That would bring all the classes closer and still get them somewhat distinct, which is kind of what the developer is going after.

Overall, I like this post. I don’t think nerfing thieves’ burst will bring something great to the game, and if the devs were to nerf their burst, they’d need to make other options available to them, such as some form of decent sustained damage.

There is no point touching the base hps at all… they need to buff the effectiveness of the armor >30%.

100% agree with the OP on this. In spvp and WvW the regen and stealth is too much and needs to be tweaked.

I would be interested to see the impact that an increase in hp would have on the meta. Some classes and builds don’t do we’ll in drawn out battles. It would require better management of cool downs and abilities. And yes the mesmer shatter bug is OP.

Narcarsis.5739:

Hi, my name is Caed [Aeterna]. -stuff-

Edit: Meant the XI trait, not IX.

I agree.

I would drop stealth cap to 10 secs , 8 seems too cheap ( 14 is too much) but whatever.

But it’s just a small part of the issue.

The problem is still that the class is forced to go full glass or full condi to be somewhat effective ( and both sides of the spectrum are very strong, maybe the latter not very much for tPvP but still strong).

We have just a couple of viable builds, and overall only a couple of viable sets + tha almighty shortbow.

S/D and S/P got nerfed to the ground ( S/P burst is predictable and inferior to D/D, with less evasiveness; S/D became vastly subpar after the OH dagger brutal nerf, and Tactical strike nerf, which was way too much),

P/P has been useless from the dawn of times, after the nerf to pistol damage in betas,

D/P still has issues with shadow shot rooting and being inferior to HS 80 % of the time
( and the other 10 % of the time its better to BPS+ heartseeker: you cover 450 range, get stealth, cover the other 450 while stealthed and you have a free backstab; then MAYBE you use shadow shot in restant 10 %)

Overall, we have only 2 good sets+ shortbow.
If this is balanced….

MOREOVER

There is too much trait scaling for the first tiers: fury, might stacking, + X%damage, all of them in the first tiers, and all of them ( guess what) in the most common glass cannon build: other thief options just pale in comparison, and we are already cheap on them.

Caed, i know you’re a pro NA thief, but your opinion on the class is far too biased by your playstyle preference ( glass cannon) and your suggestions would only reduce a bit the QQs ( that anyway, come from the C&D+ Mug+ Stab or from the Stab-> mug combo) while not really fixing thief fundamental flaws.

More than anything, we need more options.
Just like necros.

finally, a decent thief player advocating for prof balance. stealth absolutely needs a nerf. thief is able to faceroll way too much with such a ridiculous stealth duration. it would also alleviate the culling problems in wvw.

myself a lot of other players with a lot of experience (like playing most profs in tpvp since BWE1) have been advocating for these changes in a reasonable tone, only to get our threads flooded by too many trolls, resulting in thread deletion.

hope this thread lives long enough for JS and JP to see when they come back from vacay.

Mrbig.8019:

Caed, i know you’re a pro NA thief, but your opinion on the class is far too biased by your playstyle preference ( glass cannon) and your suggestions would only reduce a bit the QQs ( that anyway, come from the C&D+ Mug+ Stab or from the Stab-> mug combo) while not really fixing thief fundamental flaws.

attrition thieves would be just fine with 8s of stealth because they can re-enter it constantly. most of the builds you mention are actually viable right now, it’s just that d/d is so ridiculous that there’s no reason to do anything else (other than d/p maybe).

Mrbig.8019:

Just like necros.

not sure what level you play at, but necros actually have at least 3 wildly different viable builds in tpvp. condi, bunker and power. bunker is considered subpar only due to guardians being so strong; then again, all other bunker builds are as well. so yes, nerf guardian bunker more.

nerva.7940:

not sure what level you play at, but necros actually have at least 3 wildly different viable builds in tpvp. condi, bunker and power. bunker is considered subpar only due to guardians being so strong; then again, all other bunker builds are as well. so yes, nerf guardian bunker more.

lol you said it yourself: if bunker is inferior, it’s not viable.

This leaves the necro with only 2 options: condi and power ( that are only 2 possbile builds, just like thieves).

That’s about it.

Moreover, there’re not only attriction thieves ( condi built), but , as i’ve said in my post, there are 4/7 ( 3/7 if we consider D/P viable) of thief weapons sets that have basically no mean to exist: they have no purpose, and other sets do their role better by far.

I agree with Caed on his suggestions, but the thief has really serious issues, that go far behind a simple stealth cap and a manual aiming heartseeker.

This can sound ridicolous, but the thief needs serious buffing, otherwise, even with greatest nerf hammer hit, all thieves will still go full glass in order to be viable in tourneys.

Or you could just directly reduce the initial damage of the burst, and achieve the same effect. Increasing health caps causes the same effect on a global scale, it doesn’t increase reaction speed, it increases the ability to endure damage, and reduces the power of damage conditions further. Making defensive builds in general stronger, conditions weaker, and putting greater emphasis on burst to do meaningful damage and shorten battles when people are more endurant, as I see it.

I disagree (except for the stealth cap) in that I don’t think it accomplishes
this : “These 3 things will balance my class and increase the skill cap to playing thieves correctly.”.
Outside of a D/D change and lesser extent D/P change it doesn’t do much overall. The Heartseeker change just makes it clunkier with initiative as I see it. Burning speed has the benefit in that, The elementalists attacks, are not 130 range, and even if you miss burning speed you get a field of fire.

Reducing Dagger burst also doesn’t stop it from being burst, which your health section implies occurs.

Stealth attacks being significant offensive options while acceptable is boring to begin with, and while it may not be the focus of your post, they themself don’t make thieves enjoyable to watch or play against.

D/D
D/P
S/P
P/D
SB. Are all usable Mr.Big.
S/D as well but it’s not as obviously effective as the above, since it’s got basically 0 burst relative to the others and I can spam headshot for cheaper and faster results than CnD+Tactical.

I understand your a good thief, but your views are too linear, because you only seem to have one play style, and your balance changes effect the other play styles more negatively and they are the ones that need help the most.

Fix non-stealth thief weapon sets to be significantly stronger damage. (P/P, S/P.)

The Stealth is fine, but culling bug is whats killing everyone.

If changes go as you suggest, they may just have to scrap the class and redesign it, for thieves have little to no access to the boons needed to survive if you nerf stealth. (Protection/Vigor.) and they would also need more access to (Fury/Swiftness.).

Having less healing but more access to vigor would benefit the thief to where its more skilled dodge rolls and damage prevention then just healing it up.

Having protection but less stealth means the thief is seen more, but hes harder to kill, which seems to be what everyone wants anyways.

Mrbig.8019:

Caed, i know you’re a pro NA thief, but your opinion on the class is far too biased by your playstyle preference ( glass cannon) and your suggestions would only reduce a bit the QQs ( that anyway, come from the C&D+ Mug+ Stab or from the Stab-> mug combo) while not really fixing thief fundamental flaws.

More than anything, we need more options.
Just like necros.

“Thief:
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

This is Anets posted class balance philosophy on thieves, not just mine. Also I don’t play dagger/dagger. I play one of the weapon sets that you consider inferior to it (Dagger/Pistol).

Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/960-class-balance-philosophies/

ensoriki.5789:

D/D
D/P
S/P
P/D
SB. Are all usable Mr.Big.
S/D as well but it’s not as obviously effective as the above, since it’s got basically 0 burst relative to the others and I can spam headshot for cheaper and faster results than CnD+Tactical.

D/P is usable for sure.

I run with D/P in tPvP. The other ones are vastly inferior.

Usable doesn’t mean “viable”.

S/P burst is more predictable than D/D-D/P one, and does way less damage. You’ also have less ways to leave a fight , due to less acces to stealth.

P/D and D/D condition builds are totally useless in team fights, subpar to solo cap ( due to stealth preventing capping) and basically work only against side-point mesmers.

They work fine in conjunction with heavy condi support, but it’s a niche, nothing else.

S/D was strong before nerf, now it’s only a confused set ( about the role in tPvP at least) altough MH sword and OH dagger is the only set-up with great sinergy.

Overall thief tPvP viable builds are focused on D/D-D/P ( the last is very unpopular) and condi P/D-D/D.

The rest is not viable.

Narcarsis.5739:

Mrbig.8019:

Caed, i know you’re a pro NA thief, but your opinion on the class is far too biased by your playstyle preference ( glass cannon) and your suggestions would only reduce a bit the QQs ( that anyway, come from the C&D+ Mug+ Stab or from the Stab-> mug combo) while not really fixing thief fundamental flaws.

More than anything, we need more options.
Just like necros.

“Thief:
Thieves are the masters of mobility, stealth and high single target damage. They can be very fragile if you counter their stealth with area of effects or large stacks of conditions, but they trade this fragility in order to have some of the highest burst damage in the game. They are able to help allies through traps, venoms and the mobility to flank most encounters.”

This is Anets posted class balance philosophy on thieves, not just mine. Also I don’t play dagger/dagger. I play one of the weapon sets that you consider inferior to it (Dagger/Pistol).

Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/news/960-class-balance-philosophies/

I also play D/P in tPvP. I used ti play S/D before it got crushed by nerfs.

I know perfectly aNet balance phylosophy.

I don’t want my favourite class to be pigeon holed, that is all.

Top players usually tend to orient changes in order to favour their playstyles: on the other side i want changes in order to make the game overall better and have a chance to play my class ANY WAY i want, anytime i want to change.

Probably this means i’ll never be a top player, who knows.

Anyway, till people keeps on going with this mentality ( and the thief is quite one sided, according to this mentality) i think i would be off better playing an Ele, so that i know i can play as i wish.

It’s saddening to know that i keep on coming back to the thief.

Mrbig.8019:

I don’t want my favourite class to be pigeon holed, that is all.

Top players usually tend to orient changes in order to favour their playstyles: on the other side i want changes in order to make the game overall better and have a chance to play my class ANY WAY i want, anytime i want to change.

Probably this means i’ll never be a top player, who knows.

Anyway, till people keeps on going with this mentality ( and the thief is quite one sided, according to this mentality) i think i would be off better playing an Ele, so that i know i can play as i wish.

It’s saddening to know that i keep on coming back to the thief.

I mained a condition thief, and I still love condition thief. But there are many reasons that the spec will not work in tPvP. It’s mainly a 1vX spec, focusing on sustain and survivability. However you can’t cap nodes while stealthed and fighting a 1v1 against a class that can hold their own against you is useless – you’re not benefiting your team whatsoever.

Glass cannon builds are not 1v1 builds. The only options a thief has is shortbow aoe, pistolwhip aoe, single target burst, or condition. Condition is a sustain spec, the rest do laughable damage as sustain specs, however they are incredibly strong at sustain – more so than other classes. But these are very selfish builds that do not help a team. Builds that focus solely on the player using them will not win games, because they don’t capitalize on team synergy. Glass builds are focused on killing players who are already engaged in combat, so that they are less likely to be focused. The reason Pistol Whip is not used much is because it’s countered by armor, protection, and retaliation more than backstab is. That leaves shortbow and dagger burst, which fit nicely together into the 2 weapon sets you see most thieves running. This is not to say that Condition specs, pistol whip, or sustain thieves or weak – in fact they are incredibly strong (part of the reason I advocate for a stealth cap reduction), it’s just that they do not fit well on a team because they are either individual focused builds or they are hard countered by certain comps.

Narcarsis.5739:

Mrbig.8019:

I don’t want my favourite class to be pigeon holed, that is all.

Top players usually tend to orient changes in order to favour their playstyles: on the other side i want changes in order to make the game overall better and have a chance to play my class ANY WAY i want, anytime i want to change.

Probably this means i’ll never be a top player, who knows.

Anyway, till people keeps on going with this mentality ( and the thief is quite one sided, according to this mentality) i think i would be off better playing an Ele, so that i know i can play as i wish.

It’s saddening to know that i keep on coming back to the thief.

I mained a condition thief, and I still love condition thief. But there are many reasons that the spec will not work in tPvP. It’s mainly a 1vX spec, focusing on sustain and survivability. However you can’t cap nodes while stealthed and fighting a 1v1 against a class that can hold their own against you is useless – you’re not benefiting your team whatsoever.

Glass cannon builds are not 1v1 builds. The only options a thief has is shortbow aoe, pistolwhip aoe, single target burst, or condition. Condition is a sustain spec, the rest do laughable damage as sustain specs, however they are incredibly strong at sustain – more so than other classes. But these are very selfish builds that do not help a team. Builds that focus solely on the player using them will not win games, because they don’t capitalize on team synergy. Glass builds are focused on killing players who are already engaged in combat, so that they are less likely to be focused. The reason Pistol Whip is not used much is because it’s countered by armor, protection, and retaliation more than backstab is. That leaves shortbow and dagger burst, which fit nicely together into the 2 weapon sets you see most thieves running. This is not to say that Condition specs, pistol whip, or sustain thieves or weak – in fact they are incredibly strong (part of the reason I advocate for a stealth cap reduction), it’s just that they do not fit well on a team because they are either individual focused builds or they are hard countered by certain comps.

If you see my last post, i’ve said exactly what you said now.

That’s why i’m advocating for a buff : as thieves, for tPvP, we’re pretty much pigeon holed.

In the other thread, where we were discussing about burst implementation in GW2, you said burst is a necessity, but it was only a biased opinion based on you maining the thief.

All good thieves know that if burst will be toned down all over the place ( as aNet implied in their "lulz balance phylosophy), than the thief will be a pretty much dead profession: because we’re really useless without our damage.

That’s why, more than everything, we need more options.

I’ll go with an annecdote: we’re in the first period of an MMO, in every MMO it’s the "burst"meta.

It was like this in WoW, it was like this in GW, it was like this in LoL. Basically, it’s always like this.

Then devs slowly try to go to pressure meta, because burst in frsustrating for players, even more for those with less experience.

aNet devs accomplished this task in GW, and GW thief ( the sin) , who was considered the most ridicolous OP class in hystory, got nerfed to the ground, then rebuffed to OP, then nerfed to the ground, for TWO YEARS, trying to make it work for th current meta.

I just hope they won’t do the same mistake again, because we’re already close to that situation.

I think you’ve misread me. Those builds are all incredibly strong, they just don’t do very much for a team which is why they aren’t used. Different game modes (such as WvW) could capitalize on them. There is no way to buff the other specs without deeply affecting the balance of the ones currently in use (putting them over the top). If you think thieves are pigeon holed you have not seen engineers (seriously, where are they?). Engineers have it far worse than we do, being completely outclassed as a side node holder because of one utility: Mesmer Portal.

Thieves utilities are outclassed by other classes, but in turn they have the highest burst in the game. What you want is for thieves to have more utility, but this would require their burst to be toned down. Doing all of these things will result in all of the classes doing the same thing, which would be boring both to play and to watch.

Narcarsis.5739:

I think you’ve misread me. Those builds are all incredibly strong, they just don’t do very much for a team which is why they aren’t used. Different game modes (such as WvW) could capitalize on them. There is no way to buff the other specs without deeply affecting the balance of the ones currently in use (putting them over the top). If you think thieves are pigeon holed you have not seen engineers (seriously, where are they?). Engineers have it far worse than we do, being completely outclassed as a side node holder because of one utility: Mesmer Portal.

Thieves utilities are outclassed by other classes, but in turn they have the highest burst in the game. What you want is for thieves to have more utility, but this would require their burst to be toned down. Doing all of these things will result in all of the classes doing the same thing, which would be boring both to play and to watch.

Caed, the burst will be toned down in any case.

aNet stated it, basically all changes they did from alphas/betas till now were all directed to burst ( with thieves and eles being hit the most, followed by eviscerate warriors): think about it for a moment.

They don’t want the burst-bunker meta to be stable like it is currently, they want those to have a ROLE, not to be dominant.

The meta will change, and thieves will shift from being OP to UP, to OP again, like they did with the sin.

If you ask any former GW player, they’ll tell you the same, and it all happened because the assassin had basically only one viable way to be played in competitve play.

Just like the thief.

I know that in WvW the thief is freaking OP, but i don’t care about it: aNet should find a way to do something about this class to give the thief other options for competitive play ( altough i kinda know dat feel for those players in WvW getting one shotted by a single thief combo, or when 5 players get owned by a condi P/D thief).

Saying “hurr, the thief is a master of burst , durr” is an easy and lazy way to leave things as they are and justify their bad work with this class.

Does anyone else think that the issue with stealth isn’t so much how long the stealth can last but how quickly stealth can be used again?

I feel like a thief would have to plan their attacks much more carefully if they couldn’t re enter stealth for 10s instead of the current 3/4s it is now?

That was a good post Caed with reasonable suggestions. After playing thief quite a bit over the past couple of months, I’ll give my two cents into how thief plays into the current game design vision. I do believe Mr. Big has a couple good points on the class and I am reconsidering my commitment to the class.

People saying bunker/burst being so extreme at the moment is misleading. It is true that these roles play a predominant part of the current meta scene and this is reflective of the current class balance, but I’d like to add another piece to the puzzle that truly sheds light on why classes are interacting with each other the way they are.

The current guild wars 2 “trinity” is: Burst, Bunker, and AOE.

The reason you see thief being most successful within its burst role is because that is how it seems to operate most effectively. A thief’s “team fight” ability is purely reliant on shortbow for reliable AOE damage to spread around the fight, poison to hurt heals on corpses/players, and on demand mobility. To contribute within melee range, the window is rather small. So in a sense, thief is primarily ranged with the ability to “snipe” priority targets at close range that fall out of position or need pressure to blow their cool-downs. There is no spec that will allow the thief to brawl with the big boys because the AOE that naturally radiates within the epicenter of these fights would be enough pressure on the thief to force him to retreat. If he was focused? He’d blow up in 2 seconds. Even if you don’t build glass your sustain is still terrible, and you can’t kill anyone reliably. Thief’s sustain and passive protection simply sucks, and the classes godly mobility options are for it to get OUT of fights rather than maintain themselves within it.

The class, for its low hp pool and passive mitigation, doesn’t have much in the way of controlling or mitigating fights beyond stealth within the frame of a team fight. Their evasive options are powerful but they’re entirely active, forcing thief play into a duality of applying pressure and burst or simply surviving and leaving fights altogether. Other classes can apply passive mitigation boons(stability, protection, aegis, regen, etc.) to allow for sustain in team fights while performing class duties, whereas the thief’s ability to apply this to themselves is nearly non-existent. Death blossom conditions is an example of how a thief can maintain themselves over a point against tougher opponents, but specs built around the skill are so insanely gimmicky I hardly want the class to move in such a direction(Nothing against those who play it, I just don’t like it).

This could be related to people’s lack of knowledge of the class at the time, but during BWE3 towards release the thief was one of the worst classes in the game in sPvP. They were venom sharing bots that stood on the edge of battle away from melee with P/D stacking bleeds. I would like for thief to be able to contribute to the team in a meaningful way beyond gibbing people in burst combos, but venom play is horrendously boring and passive IMO.

Warriors are actually in a similar but worse position of the thief because they lack the mobility and adequate ranged options to sustain themselves. Unless they have a good team surrounding them clearing their conditions and reviving them, they get railed with conditions, AOE and simply go down. They can’t run their sturdier specs because their sustain and condi removal is terrible compared to classes like guardian and ele, forcing them into burst to be viable. If you de-fang their ability to burst other classes you’ve essentially removed their worth altogether.

Now, these problems can be addressed with clever balancing, and Anet has already acknowledged they’re going to address the trinity of bunker, burst, and AOE but it will be difficult.

condiments.8043:

-stuff-

Good post, it’s exactly what i’m trying to say ( I have not mentioned AoE not because i don’t consider it, but because it’s a logical consequence of team fights).

When i go back to alpha /beta, other classes were basically bettern than the thief in every aspect

A warrior with sigil of doom&intelligence could run a triple axe build and if you were not dodging the eviscerate, you would eat something like 14 k in a single shot, then rinse and repeat after 10 secs.

Eles were hitting dragon’s tooth + phoenix for 13-14 k AOE, and had their immo sigil every 20 secs, for 5 secs roots.

Basically, any class could deal more damage than a thief.

The thief was basically a venom share bot, altough venoms were not wasted on a missed attack, making venom share build BY FAR the best thief build, with great sustain damage ( venoms lasted 45 secs and hit for about 400 unavoidable damage per tick, it was ridicolous): thief role was simply a different one, but it was “venom share or GTFO”.

After they toned down basically any other class burst, they left thief one the only one to be somewhat high and unpredictable, kinda like if they were thinking " uhm well, this class is kinda worthless, let’s leave it with high burst in order to be able to accomplish something".

The thief class is one of the biggest design lazyness fail of MMO history, and now they’re starting to see the picture for what it is (thief burst is still too strong, AoE damage is too high and bunkers are too strong, or at least compared to any other build), i’m VERY AFRAID of my class future.

Pls, aNet, do your work well. PLEASE.

Seether.7285:

Does anyone else think that the issue with stealth isn’t so much how long the stealth can last but how quickly stealth can be used again?

I feel like a thief would have to plan their attacks much more carefully if they couldn’t re enter stealth for 10s instead of the current 3/4s it is now?

In tPvP if you’re stealth, you cannot cap. Nobody cares about a stealthed thief on a point, unless he’s going to unleash its burst.

If you’re worried to fight against a perma-stealth thief, it means he’s not a glass cannon and he won’t be able to kill you in less than a minute, unless you’re a warrior or a mesmer.

Basically, he’s an hinderance to his team.

condiments.8043:

That was a good post Caed with reasonable suggestions. After playing thief quite a bit over the past couple of months, I’ll give my two cents into how thief plays into the current game design vision. I do believe Mr. Big has a couple good points on the class and I am reconsidering my commitment to the class.

People saying bunker/burst being so extreme at the moment is misleading……………

I was tempted to make a similar post earlier.

People point the finger at thieves, just because their burst is hard to see coming. The problem doesn’t lie with thieves alone though. There’s just too much damage coming from every source.

Your warrior example is probably the reason that I feel that is true. Theres too much damage at the “epicenter” of fights for the warrior to stay around for long. I don’t think its a problem with the warrior’s design. I think its a lack of consideration for that role. A thief get away by not having to be in the fight like a warrior, hence all the finger pointing at thieves.

If they toned town the damage from every source, it would make that “epicenter” a more hospitable place, so sustained damage builds might become more viable. Burst builds could still exist as their damage would be brought back the same % as all other builds.

The only problem with this idea is that bunker classes would become even more difficult to kill. So defensive capabilities of some classes would have to be brought back as well, including the thief which is why I agree with Caed’s post.

They could actually leave the amount of healing relatively the same. You might actually start to see real support builds rather than the selfish burst/bunker/AoE builds that are the current meta. Less damage and less defensive capabilities would make healing builds, group condition removal, and group buffs more important.

I don’t think its a problem with any one class. It’s every class.

Angriff.1935:

People point the finger at thieves, just because their burst is hard to see coming. The problem doesn’t lie with thieves alone though. There’s just too much damage coming from every source.

If they toned town the damage from every source, it would make that “epicenter” a more hospitable place, so sustained damage builds might become more viable. Burst builds could still exist as their damage would be brought back the same % as all other builds.

The only problem with this idea is that bunker classes would become even more difficult to kill. So defensive capabilities of some classes would have to be brought back as well, including the thief which is why I agree with Caed’s post.

They could actually leave the amount of healing relatively the same. You might actually start to see real support builds rather than the selfish burst/bunker/AoE builds that are the current meta. Less damage and less defensive capabilities would make healing builds, group condition removal, and group buffs more important.

I don’t think its a problem with any one class. It’s every class.

This is why I said increase base HP for all classes, it tones down burst and aoe cleave (including wells and marks) while leaving classes at their respective damage levels. It doesn’t hurt any one class but leaves everyone off at the same place and is far easier to do than touching damage numbers for each class.

Unfortunately it would also make bunkering better.

Reducing damage would be as simple as reducing damage stats on the amulets/runes. This would affect all classes fairly evenly.

Either way, bunkering is the reason that high burst is necessary. Unfortunately burst vs bunker is pretty stable where it’s at. So to change damage or vitality, would necessitate changing bunkering.

It’s pretty apparent regardless of what school of thought you come from that balanced builds and support builds are almost always sub-par. Not impossible to implement but unfavorable. I’d like to see a more desirable middle ground.

I do not know you. Also, as much as I’d like to sit down and study up on my trigonometry in the middle of Khylo, you cannot take classes in sPvP. Also also, couldn’t you have found one of the other hundreds of thief threads on this board to post in?

Also also ALSO, I kind of like the idea of increasing health pools a bit. :P

Angriff.1935:

Unfortunately it would also make bunkering better.

Reducing damage would be as simple as reducing damage stats on the amulets/runes. This would affect all classes fairly evenly.

Either way, bunkering is the reason that high burst is necessary. Unfortunately burst vs bunker is pretty stable where it’s at. So to change damage or vitality, would necessitate changing bunkering.

It’s pretty apparent regardless of what school of thought you come from that balanced builds and support builds are almost always sub-par. Not impossible to implement but unfavorable. I’d like to see a more desirable middle ground.

i was about to say the same exact thing.

More health= moar bunkers.

It would be fairly easier to reduce numbers on amulets, and tweak skills accordingly.

The point is that some classes are simply not made for sustained fights: the warrior and the thief are a clear example of how this game is not intended this way.

Or maybe the game is designed this way, but they simply went wrong with some classes, and the burts-bunker meta is covering these design issues.

I’m starting to think it’s the latter.

Anyway, aNet should start thinking at a way to clear this mess.

Personally ( and this also goes about the lack of a large PvP community) i’m turned off from paids ( my old teammates quit long ago) due to lack of build diversity, stagnant meta and no ladders.

Balance and build diversity is a top priority for tons of players, becasue above all we want to have fun and feel the challenge.

Balanced builds are not sub-par, and I never said that. They are powerful but fill specific roles which are not required in a point hold type game.

A small HP boost will not ruin the balance of burst against bunkers, it will merely prevent the instant gib on glass cannons, 99% burst is fine, 100% is not. 99% gives reaction time, allows a team to peel and gives you time to heal. You can’t 100-0 a bunker now, and a 2% HP base will not make a difference in the amount of time it takes to kill one.

As a side note you keep going back to your view that I am advocating the ability for thieves to burst, which I am. However none of my changes help burst, they make is harder to do and require you to play more intelligently to pull off your burst. You’re arguing a null point because none of the changes I ask for are a buff to thief’s burst.

Narcarsis.5739:

Balanced builds are not sub-par, and I never said that. They are powerful but fill specific roles which are not required in a point hold type game.

You know that this means that balanced builds are sub-par in a point hold type game, right ?

Since this game will ( maybe some day) be an E.-sport focused on conquest type game, those builds ( the majority), if the meta won’t change, will always be sub-par.

Removing almost every build in game to let a couple of builds per proff to be “e-sport viable” is not a smart idea, and surely doesn’t bring new life ( more players) to paids.

Just sayin’.

But we’re going far off topic.

You cannot balance every spec for every class in a game that is focused on something more complex than team death-match. It is impossible.

This is why there is a class philosophy – read it and deal with it.

Narcarsis.5739:

You cannot balance every spec for every class in a game that is focused on something more complex than team death-match. It is impossible.

This is why there is a class philosophy – read it and deal with it.

True, but if we take their word on the class philosophy I should be able to contribute to my team with traps. XD I was using tripwire all night and it misfired more than it actually knocked people down.

Narcarsis.5739:

You cannot balance every spec for every class in a game that is focused on something more complex than team death-match. It is impossible.

This is why there is a class philosophy – read it and deal with it.

It’s not me who made the claims " Bring the player, not the class", or the famopus quote of jon peters " my favourite build is a 26-14-20-0-10 , and i’ll do well with it" , or the “we wants multiple builds to be viable for competitive play”.

How they’re going to accomplish this and mix it with their balance phylosophy, is not my business.

As i said before, i agree with your suggestions, but i don’t believe that simply randomly raising health pools and making HS manually aiming or reduce stealth cap would solve the issues this game has.

They’re simply the top of the iceberg.

The point is that this game is still not ready. If you want to increase people joining paids, there should be tons of changes regarding

1. Paid and overall tPvP rewards
2. Exp gaining while PvPing ( and even more for tourneys)
3. Current meta and overall balance ( conquest is already a not-so-liked game type, and bunker-burst meta is only renforcing the hate)
4. A better, less frustrating tourney system ( like the one proposed by SAtaar)
5. A ladder and matchmaking
6. Serious tournaments

and i’m sure i’m missing something.

Daecollo.9578:

I understand your a good thief, but your views are too linear, because you only seem to have one play style, and your balance changes effect the other play styles more negatively and they are the ones that need help the most.

Fix non-stealth thief weapon sets to be significantly stronger damage. (P/P, S/P.)

The Stealth is fine, but culling bug is whats killing everyone.

If changes go as you suggest, they may just have to scrap the class and redesign it, for thieves have little to no access to the boons needed to survive if you nerf stealth. (Protection/Vigor.) and they would also need more access to (Fury/Swiftness.).

Having less healing but more access to vigor would benefit the thief to where its more skilled dodge rolls and damage prevention then just healing it up.

Having protection but less stealth means the thief is seen more, but hes harder to kill, which seems to be what everyone wants anyways.

P/P burst does NOT need buffs.

Play another kitten class before you go claiming your weapons do too low damage.

Thief abilities, and particularly autoattack, do significantly more sustained and burst damage than any other class except an axe warrior’s autoattack (but axe warriors are nonexistent due to mobility issues, which the thief doesn’t have). Mesmer phantasms come close at a steeper cooldown.

Play a kitten ranger or engineer or necromancer to truly see what garbage damage is.

Mrbig.8019:

3. Current meta and overall balance (conquest is already a not-so-liked game type, and bunker-burst meta is only reinforcing the hate).

You may think the general consensus is that people don’t like the game type, however the majority of players who are doing tournaments do not post on forums. You hear the whine from hot-joins and get a preconceived notion that X class or X spec/damage type is OP because that’s all you see in hot-joins. People zerg, someone dies to a thief when they’re against a team with 7 thieves, and then they come to forums to cry “Thief is OP, nerf” or you see the one guardian that survives against a team with 7 condition specs when he’s running triple shout condition removal and then you get a “Bunker is OP” thread.

The game is extremely balanced, especially for being 4 months old. The only class that is completely over the top right now is Mesmers, due to shatter exploits.

Narcarsis.5739:

Mrbig.8019:

3. Current meta and overall balance (conquest is already a not-so-liked game type, and bunker-burst meta is only reinforcing the hate).

You may think the general consensus is that people don’t like the game type, however the majority of players who are doing tournaments do not post on forums.

And how many of them are there ?

How many teams are there playing paids ?

Moreover, i have no interest about hot joins, i’m rank 35 and i went to hot joins ten times at best, and only to try gimmicky builds.

My experience is totally based on tourneys, where i usually face those very teams that should stay in paids instead of roflstomping nabs in frees.

I don’t feel thief damage is OP, i don’t feel bunkers are OP, the only thing i believe is OP is the mesmer, due to it being too strong in 1vs1, having too much damage ( bugged) and having too much utility ( portal, time warp), stuff that would keep the mesmer as the top wanted proff even without the shatter bug.

I consider myself pretty skilled ( surely my rank proves nothing, just like any QP i would have) and i don’t have a team simply because there’s no incentive to play paids, and because the meta is stagnant.

I’m the 90%.

And i’m being generous saying that paids population is 10% of the total PvP popolation.

Sidenote:

And i’m currently posting on the forum simply because i’m studying and i don’t have my PC here, otherwise i would be playing/doing something else.

Just like paid population.

Unfortunately (and not to be conceited, although it’s hard not to sound that way) the 90% don’t know what the game needs.

NO. TO ALL.

what you’ve pretty much said is drop the nerf hammer on thieves while at the SAME TIME increasing health pools? cool so the spike class that can be EASILY countered by any decent player is now useless, because the spike is not only conditional, but also less powerful, and hitting a larger health pool.

the game is fine. engi needs a buff.

bye.

I’ve learned to top about every spvp match i play with any class i play. and I learned the hard way, through buffs and nerfs and exploits. fixing bugs is good. don’t try to correct the balance, because in most cases, everyone has no idea what they’re saying.

love, pmg.
the thief that has most likely outplayed you.

No, keep the damage. However the risk/reward is far too heavily favored for the thief. It currently takes no skill to time the burst and kill someone. The changes will emphasize proper positioning and timing of burst. If this is done properly then someone SHOULD die, but the way it is currently it’s too easy to do. I agree with you, the damage should not be touched – which is why I never mentioned it. But other glass cannons need an extra 1,000hp. I can global a thief before they can react if I get a critical with a fire proc, they need the 1k hp cushion to be able to react.

Narcarsis.5739:

Unfortunately (and not to be conceited, although it’s hard not to sound that way) the 90% don’t know what the game needs.

I can agree on that.

But you need to appeal that 90 % in order to create a community.

No community will lead progressively to less interest, less population, less features.

You can’t be a pro, if there’s no one to roflstomp.

Top players maybe can understand better the game, but doesn’t change the fact that they’re top players because the game mode-balance fits their preferences.

If it was different, they would not have been top players.

That’s why their opinion, altough valid, is still biased.

In marketing you need to value trade-offs: currently GW2 pvp is on the losing side, and they need to do some changes in order to appeal more people.

Maybe this will make some people unhappy, but that would benefit the longevity of the game.

And , again, they already said they will tone down burst, bunkering and AoE, so prepare yourself to be on the unhappy side .

I agree with Caed on conquest being a ‘main’ mode is perfectly fine with Anet possible throwing a bone at the community with new modes for variety. I think 3v3 arena could be an interesting game setup, but balance could be ending up being pretty kitten with comp wars being an over-powering factor.

He is also right that the game is pretty balanced right now for the most part compared to most games. Sure there are problems like the stuff I mentioned above, but compared to other MMOs? The fact some classes have multiple viable builds to run with added creativity is crazy awesome at this point.

Balance will come with time, but its the features that are dearly needed.

It’s interesting from a Mesmer’s PoV that perhaps it’s not the duration of stealth that is so much the issue, but how often it can be used. In some games I’ve played I’ve noticed that there is a delay before stealth when you use an ability that is going to make you invisible. This delay allows you to juke with the stealth while at the same time giving the opponent a chance to guess where you are going, as the stealth is right now it’s generally just instant gratification, poof! What if Cloak and Dagger gave you stealth 1 second after using it and gave you one or both of the boons you are lacking for some seconds? Using it from stealth would reveal you and put you back into stealth sometime later, failing to land it would hurt and yet you would still have the chance to hit it again?

These boons wouldn’t be contingent upon landing the ability just activating it, but since the cost of CnD is so high you couldn’t really get more than a few seconds of one of the buffs out of every 15 seconds anyhow so it probably wouldn’t be too strong. However this small bolster to CnD isn’t the only stealth, heal stealth could receive similar love from a trait in a tree, etc etc etc. Burst can be lowered slightly since you have more sustained fighting capability, procs could be added deeper in other trees to give back the burst but on long internal cooldowns or after certain thresholds are met and so on and so on.

There are many ways they could balance these issues, but I for one would like Decoy to make a clone of me after a second or two of having used the ability, that way I run one way then POOF and leave a clone a little bit after having used it with a nice animation to show that I’ve used the Decoy ability. This also forces my rotation for my burst on my Mesmer to shift to using Decoy earlier and may alert an opponent to get ready for some tricks!

Every stealth ability could give secondary effects while requiring a small build it time before it could trigger (almost every one, the non heal utilities probably should have an instant reaction since they are on long cooldowns generally speaking).