Guild Wars 2

Cynz.9437:

Kicast.1459:

@inhearth: totally agree with you
yes thief is kitten…
broken evade spammability…stealth ( but it is even not the worst issue)
broken insta (read uncounterable without chance) gap closers
broken mobility…
broken damage in regards of their survivability

Mesmers are just as other squishies chained rapped by these ennemy they can even not run away.

What an epic failure anet seriously.

The funny thing is that thieves have never stopped complaining…
Being nerfed and nerfed again is not a reason to say thieves are underpowered…it can be a sign they were absurdly owerpowered.

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Show me ESL in last month with stacked Rangers, Necros or Guards in winning team.
Pleeeeeaaaase.

Cynz.9437:

Kicast.1459:

@inhearth: totally agree with you
yes thief is kitten…
broken evade spammability…stealth ( but it is even not the worst issue)
broken insta (read uncounterable without chance) gap closers
broken mobility…
broken damage in regards of their survivability

Mesmers are just as other squishies chained rapped by these ennemy they can even not run away.

What an epic failure anet seriously.

The funny thing is that thieves have never stopped complaining…
Being nerfed and nerfed again is not a reason to say thieves are underpowered…it can be a sign they were absurdly owerpowered.

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Having only 1 per team does’t mean the build or class is not broken. In football you don’t see 10 quarterbacks playing at the same time doesn’t mean they are useless. In soccer they only play with 1 goalkeeper, doesn’t mean they are not vital for the team.

If they stuff like canceling skills, sigil of air+fire and other exploits maybe thief becomes balanced again.

But of course if they nerf/fix thief they would need to tone down mesmers.

Thieves counter Mesmers. Plenty of builds kill thieves/mes that get shut out by cele engi/ele.

A: No.

xDudisx.5914:

Cynz.9437:

Kicast.1459:

@inhearth: totally agree with you
yes thief is kitten…
broken evade spammability…stealth ( but it is even not the worst issue)
broken insta (read uncounterable without chance) gap closers
broken mobility…
broken damage in regards of their survivability

Mesmers are just as other squishies chained rapped by these ennemy they can even not run away.

What an epic failure anet seriously.

The funny thing is that thieves have never stopped complaining…
Being nerfed and nerfed again is not a reason to say thieves are underpowered…it can be a sign they were absurdly owerpowered.

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Having only 1 per team does’t mean the build or class is not broken. In football you don’t see 10 quarterbacks playing at the same time doesn’t mean they are useless. In soccer they only play with 1 goalkeeper, doesn’t mean they are not vital for the team.

If they stuff like canceling skills, sigil of air+fire and other exploits maybe thief becomes balanced again.

But of course if they nerf/fix thief they would need to tone down mesmers.

So it’s look likes cry: "nerf goalkeeper ASAP! they are OP!!! Can use their hands while others can’t!! "

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Except he wasn’t talking about extremes of 5 duplicate professions.

Having 2-3 Thieves or Mesmers is pretty extremely bad.

Having 2-3 more stackable professions would be better. Usually when you get 3 Thieves, the other 2 aren’t people aren’t even able to stand on point, creating a fully dysfunctional comp.

Get 3 Engies/Warriors/Eles/Guardians/Rangers and you can say, ‘alright, these pickup players probably won’t mass suicide at mid.’

Chaith.8256:

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Except he wasn’t talking about extremes of 5 duplicate professions.

Having 2-3 Thieves or Mesmers is pretty extremely bad.

Having 2-3 more stackable professions would be better. Usually when you get 3 Thieves, the other 2 aren’t people aren’t even able to stand on point, creating a fully dysfunctional comp.

Get 3 Engies/Warriors/Eles/Guardians/Rangers and you can say, ‘alright, these pickup players probably won’t mass suicide at mid.’

It’s because Thief/Mesmer fill different role than other classes. However it doesn’t mean Thief isn’t OP. Imho game shouldn’t be balanced around class stacking, players shouldn’t be punished for switching at the beginning of match so stacking of classes at certain MMR wouldn’t be issue, since ‘good’ players should be able to play more than one class.

Also if each single winning team in tournaments has Thief, then it proves there is something wrong with Thief if having it is necessary to win. While Mesmer is rarely played (compared to Thief) and Ranger is close to not be played at all. Keep in mind that ‘solo q aka ranked arena’ =/= competitive team play.

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Flawed understanding is flawed.

“More than 1” <> “Entire team”. There’s a whole bunch of numbers that are greater than 1 AND less than 5.

I’m willing to bet a number of football teams would jump at the chance to field 2 goalies and 1 less offensive player – which was exactly OP’s point.

rangers just suffer from design flaw, has nothing to do with thieves themself
mesmers are still played
just because those teams won with thief doesn’t mean you have to have thief to win game

did you ever think that those people playing thief maybe just prefer playing the class and happend to be good at it?

should i remind you on 3 bunkers, 2 necros comps?

and i would love someone to answer my question: if thieves are so OP why does nobody stack medi guards? those eat thieves for breakfast

Morwath.9817:

Chaith.8256:

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Except he wasn’t talking about extremes of 5 duplicate professions.

Having 2-3 Thieves or Mesmers is pretty extremely bad.

Having 2-3 more stackable professions would be better. Usually when you get 3 Thieves, the other 2 aren’t people aren’t even able to stand on point, creating a fully dysfunctional comp.

Get 3 Engies/Warriors/Eles/Guardians/Rangers and you can say, ‘alright, these pickup players probably won’t mass suicide at mid.’

It’s because Thief/Mesmer fill different role than other classes. However it doesn’t mean Thief isn’t OP. Imho game shouldn’t be balanced around class stacking, players shouldn’t be punished for switching at the beginning of match so stacking of classes at certain MMR wouldn’t be issue, since ‘good’ players should be able to play more than one class.

Also if each single winning team in tournaments has Thief, then it proves there is something wrong with Thief if having it is necessary to win. While Mesmer is rarely played (compared to Thief) and Ranger is close to not be played at all. Keep in mind that ‘solo q aka ranked arena’ =/= competitive team play.

Having a thief has not necessary to win, now, or historically. It has a role nobody else can fill so of course it’s represented well.

Some notable tournaments I’ve seen… Cheese Mode taking weeklies with no Thief, historically, Apex Prime being on top with their support teamfight meta (no Thief).

The solution would be make thieves and mesmers more similar to the other classes by reducing their mobility and buff their specs other than zerker. Make celestial thief viable

Stop saying Mesmer is still played or is somehow valuable in high tier PvP, because it is not. ALL the PRO mesmer players stopped playing the class because it doesn’t worth anymore to be a heavy fat baby that needs to be babysited by your team.

The only thing that changed about Thieves is that they aren’t soo required anymore to be in big fights brusting key targets (only if there is a Mes or w/e) because of how they suffer from all the AoE from Cele Ele/Engie, but they are still a good addition because of their roamming, decap and how they easily turn a 1×1 to a 2×1 in favor of their team.

Cynz.9437:

did you ever think that those people playing thief maybe just prefer playing the class and happend to be good at it?

No offense to players, but imho really good players should be able to multiclass. So if players more often consider A better in role X than B and C. Thats probably not because they are better at A than B and C, but because tools of A are better in certain task they have to do.

Problem is Thief can’t be replaced by other class, because other ‘mobile zerkers’ won’t be able to be as mobile nor they will be able to disengage anytime they need to.

Another thing about Thief is since there is no counter play to stealth (except AoE when he stealths, which doesn’t work when Thief comes stealthed to ‘support’ friends in fights out of nowhere), Thief often won’t be as squishy as other Zerkers.

Cynz.9437:

should i remind you on 3 bunkers, 2 necros comps?

Show me those in >current< meta, past before some nerfs to other classes etc has nothing with current situation. Whole argument of ‘Thiefs aren’t OP because some teams in old meta weren’t running them’ is silly when were discussin >current< meta, which is effect of some changes to other builds existing in the past.

Cynz.9437:

and i would love someone to answer my question: if thieves are so OP why does nobody stack medi guards? those eat thieves for breakfast

Because thieves doesn’t have to 1v1, but 2v1 due to their superior mobility and ability to leave combat without any harm when they don’t want to fight. So if you keep in mind, you want to counter other 4 players, but not Thief which won’t fight vs you 1v1 anyway probably if your build can roll over it 1v1…

inhearth.2038:

Stop saying Mesmer is still played or is somehow valuable in high tier PvP, because it is not. ALL the PRO mesmer players stopped playing the class because it doesn’t worth anymore to be a heavy fat baby that needs to be babysited by your team.

The only thing that changed about Thieves is that they aren’t soo required anymore to be in big fights brusting key targets (only if there is a Mes or w/e) because of how they suffer from all the AoE from Cele Ele/Engie, but they are still a good addition because of their roamming, decap and how they easily turn a 1×1 to a 2×1 in favor of their team.

Yet somehow we have seen Helseth in finals recently, and had another mesmer in the finals of the NA ESL cup yesterday.

@Morwath

When something has no counterplay it means there’s no way deal with it. I can list off dozens of ways to deal with thief stealth options. You can feel there’s not enough counterplay to thief stealth, but it’s not uncounterable.

(sorry my bad English)

because micha and hellseth play mesmer and are incredibly good does not mean the mesmer is OP.

(besides all his team plays for them)

In fact impressed me when I saw hellseth of necromancer and thief.

the necromancers are OP because noscoc is in my opinion the best player in gw2. Nerf the necromancers because noscoc is very good (ridiculous) and because his team is the best in NA, then the necro need nerf (ridiculous)

In my opinion the mesmer only plays (and in rare cases) because it has a good cleaning boons, especially for the Might of ele) and only if your computer is ready to play for a mesmer.

The thief prevents any other class is roamer and be dps.

Just as the ele prevented play warror hammer, guardian, and ranger.

The thief, since he started the game, is the king of dps and roamer.

everything can change, but never stop playing with thief (unless your team is very tank, but even cheese mode has a thief)

the solution is nerf the thief ?, I think not. We are condemned to play tanks or semitank for thief. It is something that has never changed in the game. Although the thief come to say I’m lying.

Shockwave.1230:

@Morwath

When something has no counterplay it means there’s no way deal with it. I can list off dozens of ways to deal with thief stealth options. You can feel there’s not enough counterplay to thief stealth, but it’s not uncounterable.

You can’t prevent Thief entering stealth. And once he enters it, you can’t track his high mobility abilities, you can only predict where he can be and where he will strike, but it doesn’t mean you will predict right, while you can hunt down any other class. This is huge advantage over any other roamer, because you can only guess where Thief is and where he is heading.

Thats what I meant by stealth having no counterplay, even if you can e.g. finish briefly stealthed Thief by AoEing his position.

Morwath.9817:

Shockwave.1230:

@Morwath

When something has no counterplay it means there’s no way deal with it. I can list off dozens of ways to deal with thief stealth options. You can feel there’s not enough counterplay to thief stealth, but it’s not uncounterable.

You can’t prevent Thief entering stealth.

You can reasonably prevent every weapon skill that grants stealth. The only things you can’t reasonably prevent are SR, Blinding powder, and Last refuge (though last refuge will usually screw the thief’s stealth up for you.)

And once he enters it, you can’t track his high mobility abilities

Except with channeled skills

, you can only predict where he can be and where he will strike, but it doesn’t mean you will predict right, while you can hunt down any other class. This is huge advantage over any other roamer, because you can only guess where Thief is and where he is heading.

in the vast majority of cases, “Behind you and also in melee” is the only position a thief is dangerous in, making predicting “where he’ll strike” unbelievably easy. Those classes you can “hunt down” have options for damage invlunerabilities, protection, and stability which thief does not get (Mentioning AE as a way to get stability will generate much amusement on my part)

Thats what I meant by stealth having no counterplay, even if you can e.g. finish briefly stealthed Thief by AoEing his position.

We know what you meant, it was just incorrect. If you feel stealth has “no counterplay”, you don’t have enough experience for your opinion to be taken very seriously. You’ve also obviously never played a thief, because if you had you’d have watched an experienced player easily counterplay your stealth.

Morwath.9817:

Chaith.8256:

Fortus.6175:

Cynz.9437:

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Flawed logic is flawed…..

So would you rather have a full team of 5 bunker guardians, or 5 cele engis, or 5 power ranger, or 5 necros , etc etc?!

Sigh.

I would you like to watch a football game with 11 goalies, or 11 trainers, etc….. They are both vital yet you dont see european leagues asking for several of them…..

Thieves are prevalent in ALL teams, every single one of them, throughout the entire history of the game since release, unlike other classes, which had literally 0% in some competitions, namely elementalists.

edit: I can see Im not the one using the football analogy xD

Except he wasn’t talking about extremes of 5 duplicate professions.

Having 2-3 Thieves or Mesmers is pretty extremely bad.

Having 2-3 more stackable professions would be better. Usually when you get 3 Thieves, the other 2 aren’t people aren’t even able to stand on point, creating a fully dysfunctional comp.

Get 3 Engies/Warriors/Eles/Guardians/Rangers and you can say, ‘alright, these pickup players probably won’t mass suicide at mid.’

It’s because Thief/Mesmer fill different role than other classes. However it doesn’t mean Thief isn’t OP. Imho game shouldn’t be balanced around class stacking, players shouldn’t be punished for switching at the beginning of match so stacking of classes at certain MMR wouldn’t be issue, since ‘good’ players should be able to play more than one class.

Also if each single winning team in tournaments has Thief, then it proves there is something wrong with Thief if having it is necessary to win. While Mesmer is rarely played (compared to Thief) and Ranger is close to not be played at all. Keep in mind that ‘solo q aka ranked arena’ =/= competitive team play.

Thieves are obviously the best roamer classes in the game. One single thief can backcap/uncontested a node then roam half across the map to help gank a 1v1 fight.
That’s why every top team has a thief. No other class does it better.

Players with 1200 toughness and half health get two shotted by a thief and start QQing.

The article has a lot of great points but here is what I think.

I think mesmer historically has only limited the meta by being so strong you should take 1 on each comp. They did not however limit other people from playing other builds by countering them.

Thief on the other hand has kept so many builds out of GW2’s competitive history it’s crazy. They counter a lot of builds that could have been and could still be taken but because thieves exist we’ll never see that kind of diversity. I will say that now more than ever though thieves are less limiting.

I don’t think people switched to celestial because of these classes though. Celestial is just really strong so people play it. Celestial classes still gets insta bursted by thief mesmer pretty easily.

Zento.7401:

the necromancers are OP because noscoc is in my opinion the best player in gw2.

Your opinion is incorrect. Reported in-game for posting a wrong opinion

Phantaram is the best player in gw2. And Ostrich Eggs.

Love,
Fantaram

Phantaram.1265:

The article has a lot of great points but here is what I think.

I think mesmer historically has only limited the meta by being so strong you should take 1 on each comp. They did not however limit other people from playing other builds by countering them.

Thief on the other hand has kept so many builds out of GW2’s competitive history it’s crazy. They counter a lot of builds that could have been and could still be taken but because thieves exist we’ll never see that kind of diversity. I will say that now more than ever though thieves are less limiting.

I don’t think people switched to celestial because of these classes though. Celestial is just really strong so people play it. Celestial classes still gets insta bursted by thief mesmer pretty easily.

Care to list a few of these builds that would be perfectly viable if thieves didn’t exist?

If I recall correctly (and it’s possible I’m mistaken), you’re primarily a mesmer player who’s made a career of requesting thief nerfs on the boards, so it’s hard to take anything you say without a grain of salt.

evilapprentice.6379:

Phantaram.1265:

The article has a lot of great points but here is what I think.

I think mesmer historically has only limited the meta by being so strong you should take 1 on each comp. They did not however limit other people from playing other builds by countering them.

Thief on the other hand has kept so many builds out of GW2’s competitive history it’s crazy. They counter a lot of builds that could have been and could still be taken but because thieves exist we’ll never see that kind of diversity. I will say that now more than ever though thieves are less limiting.

I don’t think people switched to celestial because of these classes though. Celestial is just really strong so people play it. Celestial classes still gets insta bursted by thief mesmer pretty easily.

Care to list a few of these builds that would be perfectly viable if thieves didn’t exist?

If I recall correctly (and it’s possible I’m mistaken), you’re primarily a mesmer player who’s made a career of requesting thief nerfs on the boards, so it’s hard to take anything you say without a grain of salt.

Phantaram is and pretty much has always been an ele player.

I think examples of builds that thief pushes out of the meta have already been listed:

Thief pushes Fresh Air ele out. In a 1v1 on beach, FA comes out ahead. But in an actual match, the thief’s superior mobility and disengage potential outweighs the FA’s ability to do a bigger initial burst.

Thief has also appears to be pushing shatter mesmer out, although a very small handful of mesmers continue to stick with it.

The reason thief pushes other glass specs out isn’t necessarily because thief would beat the other glass specs in 1v1. In fact, many glass specs have an advantage vs. thief in 1v1 on beach. What thief brings to the table is superior mobility and disengage, which mitigates their squishiness and amplifies their offensive power.

Cynz.9437:

Kicast.1459:

@inhearth: totally agree with you
yes thief is kitten…
broken evade spammability…stealth ( but it is even not the worst issue)
broken insta (read uncounterable without chance) gap closers
broken mobility…
broken damage in regards of their survivability

Mesmers are just as other squishies chained rapped by these ennemy they can even not run away.

What an epic failure anet seriously.

The funny thing is that thieves have never stopped complaining…
Being nerfed and nerfed again is not a reason to say thieves are underpowered…it can be a sign they were absurdly owerpowered.

and yet there is not a single person out there that wants more than 1 thief on team… but it is fine to have multple wars, guards, engis, eles, necros, rangers even mesmers on same team~

Why do you need more than the one thief when they can fly across the map, dump all their damage to down targets instantly, and fly back the other way? Its like bringing two Mike Tysons to a boxing ring when you only need the one man with the one punch to end it. The second Mike Tyson will be standing there looking like a whole lot of redundant.

Regarding thieves, it’s simple, really. They have 3 of the strongest defensive/offensive mechanisms in the game: high dodge uptime, stealth and massive mobility, none of that needs any investment in stats, hence using zerker amulet is a given. They also have among the highest burst (or more readily available) with the lowest set up. They also happen to be good at 1v1, when gankers should be that, gankers, and not proficient duelists too (but this one is an opinion).
Some of their stolen skills are elite level and could use some nerfing. Their interrupt prioritizing the steal of stability first kind of gives them an unfair advantage as well (my opinion again).

This thread seems to have degraded into another “LOOK! SEE?! THEFS R OHPEE!” thread.

I’ll just leave this comment with: Thief is a one trick pony where everyone hates the one trick. And anet is not going to do anything about it because its really all thieves are good for in sPvP. Nerf backstab and you make thieves useless. And no, venoms won’t help.

Just to get back on topic, the article has a point EXCEPT that they’ve only contributed to the meta.

Zerk burst > bunker > cele might-stack bunker.

You only see 1 thief on teams because having more than one person dedicated to single target elimination reduces the effectiveness of the group. Thief does not have very many avenues of team support (don’t even say venoms) so they usually do what is best to help their group, single target elimination.

So thief might be used in the current meta but they are not part of it.

Try not to get offended by this but, the problem isn’t thieves, its you. After maining a thieve for a long period then trying the other classes i’ve come to the conclusion thieves are a loot bag . I am dead serious. it is a joke how easy it is to kill thieves. The only 2 reasons you see them in pvp is: They are the best hopscotch players (how boring) and Most thieves just like the mechanics of that class.

That is not the thieves fault, but arena nets for only putting in boring conquest.
Stealth is useless with all the Aoe spam + auto targeting, Evades only get you so far. (rangers had just as many evades at one point, sadly they where wrongfully nerfed) as for Massive mobility… well other classes have that but you need to have the 180 spin button set. (ranger). We have no invincabilities like other classes, are condition clear is poor, we have low base hp + def, 9/10 wpn skills have been nerfed (s/d + sb) And honestly unless your running burst you are going to lack the damage to kill most targets.

So short answer… No.

it’s being said since hambow era, thief locks basically every burst class out of the meta.

they need to redesign thief and make it more stat dependent for defense.
less broken evades(broken in good and bad ways), more self sustain ability that can be countered and relied on stats, like endurance regenerate faster the higher healing power you have or something.
so thief can be also used as other rules and don’t completely dominate in one.

In glass vs. glass, he who strikes first wins. With the amount of stealth and teleports thieves have access to, they have a major advantage in getting the first burst off, and it is obvious that they will always be alpha predators among zerkers. This is unless the zerkers can gain ways to better deal with them such as with medi guards. However the tricky part is how to make other zerk builds able to survive thieves without making their other tankier specs even more op?

The biggest advantage they have is that they can pick and choose their engagements at will. Even if other zerk builds can beat them in clean 1v1’s if a thief catches those builds without important cool-downs or at sort of low health, they have no chance of getting away and will die. However if those builds catch the thief in the same situation, they simply have so many ways to get away. The likely hood that all of them are on cool-down is minuscule.

its specifically the role of thieves to make sure this game isnt just a bunch of GS Mesmers and LB rangers sniping everyone from the clocktower. that would suck. ty thieves.

Solstice.1097:

its specifically the role of thieves to make sure this game isnt just a bunch of GS Mesmers and LB rangers sniping everyone from the clocktower. that would suck. ty thieves.

True. Delete thieves from the game you will have free casting 1500 range pew pews destroying people even faster than thieves.

Btw celestial tanks have a much higher win rate vs other zerker builds than thief/mes. If anything a zerker build cannot win against celestial unless played extremely well. The proff is D/D cele ele vs S/F fresh air ele. Its a one sided match up , 100% win rate for the /D ele while a thief or a mes could still lose to a S/D fresh air ele .

Its the celestial / bruiser type builds that push everything out of the meta.

Khenzy.9348:

Regarding thieves, it’s simple, really. They have 3 of the strongest defensive/offensive mechanisms in the game: high dodge uptime, stealth and massive mobility, none of that needs any investment in stats, hence using zerker amulet is a given. They also have among the highest burst (or more readily available) with the lowest set up. They also happen to be good at 1v1, when gankers should be that, gankers, and not proficient duelists too (but this one is an opinion).
Some of their stolen skills are elite level and could use some nerfing. Their interrupt prioritizing the steal of stability first kind of gives them an unfair advantage as well (my opinion again).

This paragraph describes the issue. They have defensive mechanics that don’t need stats. It should be more rewarding for thief to spec in more defensive stats and not force everyone to run zerker.

If the fix some bugs like shadowshot and infiltrator strike glitch theif mobility will probably be more balance with everything else in the game.

glock.6590:

Solstice.1097:

its specifically the role of thieves to make sure this game isnt just a bunch of GS Mesmers and LB rangers sniping everyone from the clocktower. that would suck. ty thieves.

True. Delete thieves from the game you will have free casting 1500 range pew pews destroying people even faster than thieves.

Btw celestial tanks have a much higher win rate vs other zerker builds than thief/mes. If anything a zerker build cannot win against celestial unless played extremely well. The proff is D/D cele ele vs S/F fresh air ele. Its a one sided match up , 100% win rate for the /D ele while a thief or a mes could still lose to a S/D fresh air ele .

Its the celestial / bruiser type builds that push everything out of the meta.

thief push every zerker out of the meta, while dd engi push everything else out of the meta.

doesnt matter, after dd engi nerfs, thief will still be pushing zerkers out of the meta.

the hambow meta would have been so different if thief did not just reckt everybody.

Simon.3794:

glock.6590:

Solstice.1097:

its specifically the role of thieves to make sure this game isnt just a bunch of GS Mesmers and LB rangers sniping everyone from the clocktower. that would suck. ty thieves.

True. Delete thieves from the game you will have free casting 1500 range pew pews destroying people even faster than thieves.

Btw celestial tanks have a much higher win rate vs other zerker builds than thief/mes. If anything a zerker build cannot win against celestial unless played extremely well. The proff is D/D cele ele vs S/F fresh air ele. Its a one sided match up , 100% win rate for the /D ele while a thief or a mes could still lose to a S/D fresh air ele .

Its the celestial / bruiser type builds that push everything out of the meta.

thief push every zerker out of the meta, while dd engi push everything else out of the meta.

doesnt matter, after dd engi nerfs, thief will still be pushing zerkers out of the meta.

the hambow meta would have been so different if thief did not just reckt everybody.

In that case they need to buff sub par zerkerss builds to match thief/mes. Although buffing is not the right word. Berserker warrior seems to be a bad idea regardless of thief/mes, their defensive mechanics are not made for being a pure one shot glass.

Thief and mesmer does have the perfect class design to wear a zerker amulet and still be effective even more than using defense stats.

At this point its a design flaw and not balance.

The article started off interesting enough…but quickly faded into a typical “thieves have constant stealth and evade and I can’t do anything to counter them” type argument.

I agree with the general premise that the burst potential of thieves and mesmers in berserker builds leads to other classes using celestial amulets, but I don’t think it’s the fault of the thieves/mesmers.

Thieves/mesmers have a very active defense that revolves around avoiding damage, whereas most other classes can rely much more on soaking up that damage to survive. When you add in an amulet that gives a very high DPS boost with little defensive boost, then you design an amulet that’s perfectly designed for a damage avoidant build. However, if you tone down your pure dps amulet to be a bit more tanky, then it’s no longer something that only a thief/mesmer benefits from.

On the other side, if you provide a very tanky amulet that also provides high dps, then you give a very powerful tool to the classes that revolve around soaking up damage.

TL;DR: Reduce the disparity between berserker and celestial amulet and you see less of an effect described in the article. The problem is the amulets though, not the classes.

glock.6590:

Simon.3794:

glock.6590:

Solstice.1097:

its specifically the role of thieves to make sure this game isnt just a bunch of GS Mesmers and LB rangers sniping everyone from the clocktower. that would suck. ty thieves.

True. Delete thieves from the game you will have free casting 1500 range pew pews destroying people even faster than thieves.

Btw celestial tanks have a much higher win rate vs other zerker builds than thief/mes. If anything a zerker build cannot win against celestial unless played extremely well. The proff is D/D cele ele vs S/F fresh air ele. Its a one sided match up , 100% win rate for the /D ele while a thief or a mes could still lose to a S/D fresh air ele .

Its the celestial / bruiser type builds that push everything out of the meta.

thief push every zerker out of the meta, while dd engi push everything else out of the meta.

doesnt matter, after dd engi nerfs, thief will still be pushing zerkers out of the meta.

the hambow meta would have been so different if thief did not just reckt everybody.

In that case they need to buff sub par zerkerss builds to match thief/mes. Although buffing is not the right word. Berserker warrior seems to be a bad idea regardless of thief/mes, their defensive mechanics are not made for being a pure one shot glass.

Thief and mesmer does have the perfect class design to wear a zerker amulet and still be effective even more than using defense stats.

At this point its a design flaw and not balance.

I never get how some classes defensive mechanics never require any stats.
like acrobat line, stealth, clone, etc. so they can do so good with zerker ( yes some are not viable in 5v5 like med guard.)

and like how engineers never needed to trait for any condition clear to be more then just effective.

SobeSoul.6910:

inhearth.2038:

Stop saying Mesmer is still played or is somehow valuable in high tier PvP, because it is not. ALL the PRO mesmer players stopped playing the class because it doesn’t worth anymore to be a heavy fat baby that needs to be babysited by your team.

The only thing that changed about Thieves is that they aren’t soo required anymore to be in big fights brusting key targets (only if there is a Mes or w/e) because of how they suffer from all the AoE from Cele Ele/Engie, but they are still a good addition because of their roamming, decap and how they easily turn a 1×1 to a 2×1 in favor of their team.

Yet somehow we have seen Helseth in finals recently, and had another mesmer in the finals of the NA ESL cup yesterday.

Assume when someone says “all” they mean “almost all” with the exception of Helseth and probably 1-2 others. Point is, many tourney mesmers don’t use mesmers in tourneys anymore. Example: Supcutie uses thief, I believe, nowadays in tournaments. The reason Helseth can do it is his rotation skills, his team, and various other factors built around him.

Dondagora.9645:

SobeSoul.6910:

inhearth.2038:

Stop saying Mesmer is still played or is somehow valuable in high tier PvP, because it is not. ALL the PRO mesmer players stopped playing the class because it doesn’t worth anymore to be a heavy fat baby that needs to be babysited by your team.

The only thing that changed about Thieves is that they aren’t soo required anymore to be in big fights brusting key targets (only if there is a Mes or w/e) because of how they suffer from all the AoE from Cele Ele/Engie, but they are still a good addition because of their roamming, decap and how they easily turn a 1×1 to a 2×1 in favor of their team.

Yet somehow we have seen Helseth in finals recently, and had another mesmer in the finals of the NA ESL cup yesterday.

Assume when someone says “all” they mean “almost all” with the exception of Helseth and probably 1-2 others. Point is, many tourney mesmers don’t use mesmers in tourneys anymore. Example: Supcutie uses thief, I believe, nowadays in tournaments. The reason Helseth can do it is his rotation skills, his team, and various other factors built around him.

yes. i think that’s what keeps mesmer viable, more team utilities then thief, but thief dominates all.

Always so much hate around thieves out there, guess it just comes with the theme of the profession.

Hard for me to believe people think dagger thief is OP (which is most of the complaints I’m seeing, stealth/backstab references) given how much I play it. It’s only strong in conquest because the mode requires mobility. Defenitely not OP though, and thief is definitely not required in a conquest team as long as your team understands the options a thief has given the current situation on the map.

The thief hate is so strong it’s overshadowing any talk about celestial, which is obviously in an OP state currently given how much you can stack them. If that isn’t a show of people’s bias I don’t know what is, but the haters are going to hate.

Simon.3794:

Dondagora.9645:

SobeSoul.6910:

inhearth.2038:

Stop saying Mesmer is still played or is somehow valuable in high tier PvP, because it is not. ALL the PRO mesmer players stopped playing the class because it doesn’t worth anymore to be a heavy fat baby that needs to be babysited by your team.

The only thing that changed about Thieves is that they aren’t soo required anymore to be in big fights brusting key targets (only if there is a Mes or w/e) because of how they suffer from all the AoE from Cele Ele/Engie, but they are still a good addition because of their roamming, decap and how they easily turn a 1×1 to a 2×1 in favor of their team.

Yet somehow we have seen Helseth in finals recently, and had another mesmer in the finals of the NA ESL cup yesterday.

Assume when someone says “all” they mean “almost all” with the exception of Helseth and probably 1-2 others. Point is, many tourney mesmers don’t use mesmers in tourneys anymore. Example: Supcutie uses thief, I believe, nowadays in tournaments. The reason Helseth can do it is his rotation skills, his team, and various other factors built around him.

yes. i think that’s what keeps mesmer viable, more team utilities then thief, but thief dominates all.

I think you misunderstood me. I was saying Helseth himself and his team are good. While mesmers may have more team utilities, this in no way makes the class itself “viable” just because one player can utilize it passed its average potential.

Simon.3794:

And like how engineers never needed to trait for any condition clear to be more then just effective.

It’s an intended profession weakness. As an Engineer, traiting into condition removal doesn’t allow you to counter condition builds better, it just provides a mutually exclusive, equally mediocre alternative to completely relying on Healing Turret.

Just to situate people at the issue about infiltrator strike:

Jumping during the cast of the infiltrator strike to glitch the shadow return gives sword thief and unfair mobility advantage. It falls in the same category as gimicky mechanis as stowing weapon lightning whip and spatial surge

xDudisx.5914:

Just to situate people at the issue about infiltrator strike:

i was wondering when i would get situated. thanks

xDudisx.5914:

Just to situate people at the issue about infiltrator strike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1vW5kfyoXE

Jumping during the cast of the infiltrator strike to glitch the shadow return gives sword thief and unfair mobility advantage. It falls in the same category as gimicky mechanis as stowing weapon lightning whip and spatial surge

Definitely a bug, different category than stow weapon usage though. Even though it’s possible to do it doesn’t really matter since everyone runs shortbow and that bug is less initiative efficient for distance than shortbow is (5 initiative for 600 range v 6 initiative for 900).

Some people seem to not want to be on topic so I am going to just report and hope this thread gets locked.

This thread is about thief and mesmer causing a meta not “Why thief is OP”. There are thousands of topics complaining about the same thing and quite frankly, the rest of the playerbase could care less.

If the OP’s question means the celestial meta: No, not in the least. Mesmers have little influence on the meta. Thief does influence the meta because of unrivaled map mobility, but it didn’t cause the rise and dominance of celestial builds.

The celestial meta is professions with both power damage and damaging condition application who swap weapons often and have overly powerful skills. This was caused by the following:

• Un-nerfing Elementalist Signet of Restoration completely, even though it had been cut in half in PvP when d/d was too powerful in the past.
• Various buffs to d/d skills (evade, additional blast finisher, etc)
• Engineer Incendiary Powder has been in need of a nerf for over a year.
• Not properly balancing sigils when the shared cooldown was removed. Sigil of Battle being the most obvious example.
• Rigid stat choices on amulets cause most profession builds to be either too tanky and lacking in damage or too squishy as DPS.

Only a few builds can make celestial work too well. They all have the following in common:

• Have access to multiple damaging conditions which can be applied with little effort, especially burning. Combustive Shot, Incendiary Powder, and Drake’s Breath + Ring of Fire for burning.
• Trigger swap sigils often as a natural part of play. For most professions, a weapon swap isn’t something they should always be doing on cooldown, limiting the power of swap sigils.
• Stack might naturally with abilities or blast finishers or heavily use their power trait line to offset the low power values on the celestial amulet.